quote:

Trump Wants a New Afghan Surge. That’s a Terrible Idea.

Someone needs to tell the president: The war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

By Douglas Wissing May 06, 2017

The convoy of MRAPs lumbered across the moonscape of central Helmand Province, the epicenter of America’s futile, half-century-long effort to remake Afghanistan in its own image. Generations of American developers and soldiers intended to transform this austere landscape into a breadbasket and bastion of democratic values. Instead, they created the world’s largest opium poppy plantation, the heartland of the thriving Taliban-led insurgency.

Beginning in 2009, 20,000 U.S. troops fought bloody, though inconclusive battles in Helmand, before withdrawing in 2014. During that withdrawal, a team of soldiers and I were buttoned up inside the massive armored gun-trucks, juddering down rutted tracks as Pashtun men beside the road scowled and glared at us. The Afghans clearly weren’t valuing the American efforts. The navigator suddenly pointed—“IEDs.” Veering right, the MRAP driver managed to use “fuck” as a verb, adverb, adjective and noun in the same sentence. The tribesmen, yet un-subdued, were just waiting for their time.
source

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

quote:

Trump Wants a New Afghan Surge. That’s a Terrible Idea.

Someone needs to tell the president: The war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

By Douglas Wissing May 06, 2017

The convoy of MRAPs lumbered across the moonscape of central Helmand Province, the epicenter of America’s futile, half-century-long effort to remake Afghanistan in its own image. Generations of American developers and soldiers intended to transform this austere landscape into a breadbasket and bastion of democratic values. Instead, they created the world’s largest opium poppy plantation, the heartland of the thriving Taliban-led insurgency.

Beginning in 2009, 20,000 U.S. troops fought bloody, though inconclusive battles in Helmand, before withdrawing in 2014. During that withdrawal, a team of soldiers and I were buttoned up inside the massive armored gun-trucks, juddering down rutted tracks as Pashtun men beside the road scowled and glared at us. The Afghans clearly weren’t valuing the American efforts. The navigator suddenly pointed—“IEDs.” Veering right, the MRAP driver managed to use “fuck” as a verb, adverb, adjective and noun in the same sentence. The tribesmen, yet un-subdued, were just waiting for their time.
source

The only fact that Politico (which is par for the course for this particular 'news' publication) has gotten right is that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

Lets face it, no power which has invaded Afghanistan has ever held it for long, because the only time Afghanis work together is to throw some other Non Afghan power out.

The rest of the time, the tribes are fighting whatever tribal faction has gained control of the central government when they are not trying to kill each other in an effort to control the opium trade.

However the reality is that the US has not been involved in a "half century long effort to remake the country" even if you stretch it back to Reagan's involvement it only adds up to 37 years, and even then it was not an ongoing thing. When the Russians left, we did too (which is part of the reason the Taliban was able to take control.) Then after 9/11 we got involved again.

As far as the advice to President Trump that its a bad idea, there is one point I have to make:

When the fuck has Donald Trump listened or accept advice either professionally or politically?

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

quote:

Trump Wants a New Afghan Surge. That’s a Terrible Idea.

Someone needs to tell the president: The war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

By Douglas Wissing May 06, 2017

The convoy of MRAPs lumbered across the moonscape of central Helmand Province, the epicenter of America’s futile, half-century-long effort to remake Afghanistan in its own image. Generations of American developers and soldiers intended to transform this austere landscape into a breadbasket and bastion of democratic values. Instead, they created the world’s largest opium poppy plantation, the heartland of the thriving Taliban-led insurgency.

Beginning in 2009, 20,000 U.S. troops fought bloody, though inconclusive battles in Helmand, before withdrawing in 2014. During that withdrawal, a team of soldiers and I were buttoned up inside the massive armored gun-trucks, juddering down rutted tracks as Pashtun men beside the road scowled and glared at us. The Afghans clearly weren’t valuing the American efforts. The navigator suddenly pointed—“IEDs.” Veering right, the MRAP driver managed to use “fuck” as a verb, adverb, adjective and noun in the same sentence. The tribesmen, yet un-subdued, were just waiting for their time.
source

The only fact that Politico (which is par for the course for this particular 'news' publication) has gotten right is that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

Lets face it, no power which has invaded Afghanistan has ever held it for long, because the only time Afghanis work together is to throw some other Non Afghan power out.

The rest of the time, the tribes are fighting whatever tribal faction has gained control of the central government when they are not trying to kill each other in an effort to control the opium trade.

However the reality is that the US has not been involved in a "half century long effort to remake the country" even if you stretch it back to Reagan's involvement it only adds up to 37 years, and even then it was not an ongoing thing. When the Russians left, we did too (which is part of the reason the Taliban was able to take control.) Then after 9/11 we got involved again.

As far as the advice to President Trump that its a bad idea, there is one point I have to make:

When the fuck has Donald Trump listened or accept advice either professionally or politically?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

Trump is pretty much following the guidelines. What people do not realize is that the Taliban bans growing poppies for opiate production. That is why the US does not want them in power, because they raise the price via supply and demand for these drugs that are used extensively in western hospitals and so forth, as well as what the government smuggles in to get their slush fund up.

Those people will never be friends with anyone. the Soviets bombed them back to the stone age, the US bombed them back to the stone age, who is next ? China ? China seems not to give a shit what goes on there. In fact China only seems to care what goes on in China and its waters of course. We could take a good lesson from them. Start defending this country instead of a hundred others.

You want Afghanistan ? You take and walk across that country and kill every Man, Woman, child, dog, cat, whatever moves. Then you throw away the bodies and build to suit. You cannot leave even one of them alive. Same thing the Jews are going to have to do to the Palestinians. They will never be friends. There will be a few who hide but their scarce numbers will prevent them from ever being a force with which to be reckoned.

That is the REAL way to do war folks. The ass backwards way we do it these days leaves angry refugees, homeless people living in ashes and starving and all kinds of mess. And some of them never forget so you are never safe, even with a scant few of them left around.

Let me ask you Russians and USians, what would you do if a foreign country bombed you back to the stone age ? Your kids are starving, the place you used to work is a heap of ashes. You can't even drive anywhere because the roads are FUBAR. You don't have the money for a plane ticket to get out, and even if you did you probably would not have enough for your whole family. And where do you go ? Nice liberal Australia will take you in but they make you stay on an island, you are not integrating into their society. Nor are you working for a better future or any of that. That's a good choice ?

What choices do they really have ? Years of vetting by the US before being allowed in to a place where there are no jobs anyway, even if you have skills ? Like I said about the young in this country, even born here. If you are born poor and in the ghetto, what are your opportunities ? And this hits Black youth especially hard for whatever reasons. But if you go to a shitty school, with more bullies than teachers, more drugs than textbooks, what are your life choices when you get out of that day care center ?

You can steal, and if you learn from the right people you can keep that up for a while. You can deal drugs, and if you are smart you can do that for a while, but to do enough volume to make a living and not get busted is not easy. The other option is the military, where they inject you with shit you don't want, make you sick, expose you to circumstances that give you that PTSD that used to be called shell shock, and then treat you like shit after you get out. Know what the homeless rate is for vets ?

And the US treats people in other countries even worse. Think you can kill someone's Aunts, Uncles, Parents and kids and have them be your friend ? Many of those people cannot even be bought. Look how long there was a high bounty on Bin Laden's head and not one of them took it. In that whole country, bombed back to the stone age and people starving and all that, not one of them took the money. I would not be that loyal to any US President during my lifetime, you got a million bucks and I can deliver him, he is a gone motherfucker. And that includes all of them during my lifetime. And possibly a few others.

Liberals seem to have an idillic idea of life. I think they really believed it when Bush said we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. And they conveniently forgot that the US installed Saddam in the first place as an antagonist to Iran.

Bottom line is that the war on terror is not going to stop until the intervention stops. We need to rein in Israel, make good deals with Russia and China, stay the fuck out of other people's countires and efend our own instead of a hundred others. Then and only then wil people in those places we have decimated begin to consider forgiving us. Then and only then, when they see we have taken a different direction, will we see change. Until then, just about every action the US takes creates more terrorists. And they are actually freedom fighters if you look at it objectively. We went there forst and fucked with them. It is only recently that they have started to come here seeking revenge.

People who fial to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but how can you learn from history when it is not taught ? When it is hidden ? And then if real history is taught or propagated it is only the surface of it. They try to teach us to not look into root causes of what happened. Things happen for a reason. How did the Bolsheviks get the USSR going ? How is it that Hitler got into power ?

Everything is bullsjhit.

T^T

quote:

No, this was not any attempt to either take over the country on our terms, defeat any 'soviet' forces or take advantage of the opium trade, but just what does this OP have to do with any 'liberal discovery of revisionist history ?'

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961
Lets face it, no power which has invaded Afghanistan has ever held it for long, because the only time Afghanis work together is to throw some other Non Afghan power out.